


Snow on appleblossoms

by eyeslikerain



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: "Cubitum eamus?", M/M, finally deciding you are not straight, kissing after class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 02:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10067318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyeslikerain/pseuds/eyeslikerain
Summary: Two days after their first interrupted attempt, Francis and Richard give kissing each other another try





	

After Greek class on Monday, I went straight to my room, skipping lunch, skipping studying in the library. The effects of the Demerol Judy had given me Sunday night slowly subsided. I didn’t feel dizzy anymore and my hands started to feel normal again. But I was exhausted beyond anything I knew and just managed to slip out of my overcoat and shoes before I collapsed onto my bed.  
So much confusion. We had murdered a man, another one had kissed me, I hadn’t slept more than a few hours in days. And it had started to snow again, despite the warm spring days in the week before.  
Francis and Charles had appeared together in class this morning, freshly shaven, immaculately dressed and with a sort of conspirational calm. I didn’t suspect anything when they took off together from my room last night. Nobody else would have guessed anything particular from their entrance this morning, but to me it was immediately clear they had shared more pleasures than alcohol last night. I stared at Francis across from me at the round table. He shot me an almost mocking, slightly arrogant glance that gave me a strange sense of pain: it wasn’t as if I wouldn’t have allowed him more. And it was Charles who had interrupted, not me. He seemed to have forgotten that. But in my dope – induced haze, I wouldn’t have been enjoyable, anyway. I just couldn’t understand why I felt so bruised.

I slept through the whole afternoon and well into the night, more than twelve hours. When I got up to drink three glasses of water, I noticed a strange grey lightness outside: the ground was completely covered in snow. Again. The lights from the lanterns down the street reflected a soft glowing off the usually pitch – black lawn, and a thin moon hung frozen in the sky. I went to bed again, not sure if I should get up and start my composition or just doze a little bit more. My exhausted body decided for me, and before drifting off again, I became pleasantly aware that I felt different. Like back in my body again after an almost amnesiac absence.

I woke at six, feeling fresh and full of renewed energy. After a long shower, I dressed carefully, made some tea and read at my bureau before heading early to the Lyceum. But I seemed the only one in renewed spirits: Camilla, still mute, wore a scarf in blushed pink and seemed more frail than ever. Charles explained that her laryngitis still bothered her. They had postponed dinner at their place once more to tonight. Francis seemed rather sullen, also, claiming he feared to come down with a cold while arranging an impressive array of ointments, pills and drops of all sorts on the table before him. Julian, arriving shortly after us, was more than slightly annoyed when he noticed Bunny’s absence.  
“Well, it might seem necessary to miss one class without excuses, but would you please tell our friend to contact me if he wishes to do so continually?”  
We froze. All except Henry, whose glasses reflected the grey gleaming of the windows.  
“Certainly, Julian.”, he replied cooly.

After class, everyone seemed to have an excuse for disappearing quickly. Which was rather strange as we usually spent almost all hours we were awake together. Charles, speaking for Camilla as well, claimed they needed to get the groceries for tonight, Henry excused himself to drive over to Manchester to the library. Francis and I lingered inside the entrance of the Lyceum.  
“Let me just light this inside here”, he said, slipping a cigarette between his long fingers and indicating the continuous snow outside.  
“Shall I give you a ride?”  
My heart was beating faster and I almost trembled when I asked:  
“Francis, can we talk about – what happened in my room?”  
He let out a swirl of smoke, looking at me hurt and somehow impatient, like someone who didn’t hear this for the first time:  
“If you would rather we forget about it, it would be fine with me. Nothing happened, d’accord?”  
I wouldn’t have been more astonished had he slapped me in the face. Had I got him completely wrong? Had it happened at all?  
“Well?” He looked at me coldly.  
“No, no, that’s not at all what I mean. Look…”  
I averted my eyes, not sure how to continue. Francis’ expression changed. A mild curiosity spread on his pale face. Much more welcoming, he asked:  
“Would you like to talk about it at my place? We could have some tea.”

Although we had just some steps to walk to his car, we were covered with a light dusting of snow when we got in. Driving carefully on the slushy roads, Francis remained silent. I caught a glance of the apple trees that only a few days ago looked like a fairy ballet of gracious, delicate pink - hued structures. Now they seemed bloated and increased, their arms thick and completely white, heaving under the frozen masses covering the tender blossoms, motionless and dead. I closed my eyes and let my head sink to the back of my seat.  
“You are okay?”, I heard Francis’ concerned voice.  
“Yes, yes. It’s just – I think I got enough snow to last me a life - time.”  
He snorted: “You better get used to it if you intend on staying here any longer.”  
After a sideways glance, and obviously having remembered my miserable winter months in the drafty warehouse, he apologized:  
“Oh, sorry, I forgot. Next year, you need to get you a decent apartment for the winter. With heating.”  
“It’s not that”, I replied. “I keep thinking of Bunny. Who in his right mind would keep lying there, unmoving, stiff, and allowing the snow to cover him completely?”  
Francis seemed taken aback. “He doesn’t feel it anymore, Richard.”  
“Yes. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”  
He turned to me, patient, sympathetically: “You are tired, you are talking nonsense. We would have a whole lot of problems if he still felt anything. You know that.”  
I nodded, while he eased the car slowly into one of the parking lots in front of his house. “Damn it, the janitor didn’t get around to clearing them. Hope I will ever get off again.”

A light coating of snowflakes settled on our shoulders and hair while we slid to the door. Inside, he brushed them off my coat and asked:  
”Feeling better again?”  
Walking down the hallway to his door, he didn’t wait for my answer and fumbled for his keys. 

In his apartment, he started for the kitchen and busied himself with the water kettle. Over his shoulder, he asked:  
“What kind of tea would you like? I have a delicious Darjeeling, but if you prefer something stronger…”  
Silently, I had stepped behind him, very close. So close I could feel the softness of his light – grey cashmere sweater and smell the faint lavender scent on his delicate neck. Putting one arm around him and resting it lightly on his hand which held the kettle, I said softly:  
“I don’t want any tea.”  
He froze, but didn’t withdraw. I buried my nose in his soft hair, pulling him a little closer. Slowly, he released the kettle, my hand still resting on his smooth fingers, even more slowly, he turned slightly in my arm. His eyes were wide and astonished, and I had to inhale deeply. How beautiful he was. Ever so slowly, we eased a little more into one another, locking our glances. I think he held his breath as I did mine. I put my other arm tentatively on his back, allowed myself one long, languorous stroke of his soft sweater and pulled him cautiously closer to kiss him. Tenderly and with all of my senses alert. And so different from our first, unexpected attempt two days earlier when I was so doped I still didn’t know if I hadn’t dreamed it all. Now, it was like a dream – but very real also. I was here, bodily, and I was taking an active part. But at a very slow, languid pace. We both seemed to like it that way. Kissing him slowly, almost askingly, was an act of reassurance without talking, an attempt to sum up everything I had wanted to ask him about Sunday in a wordless, delicate manner. We enjoyed the tender, intimate slowness of our kisses while time seemed to stand still. But inevitably, our caresses turned into something more daring, got hungrier and more demanding. His hands had slipped under my shirt. The touch of his fingers on my bare skin almost burned me. Biting his neck, I brushed the soft wisps of his flaming red hair behind his ear and whispered in it:  
“Cubitum eamus?”  
He broke into a delighted smile, remembering our very first encounter, took my hand and pulled me teasingly and slowly to his bedroom.

 

I must have dozed off, because I woke up with Francis naked in my arms, his pale, smooth back against me, and in the first moment I didn’t know how I came to be here. When I remembered, a wave of emotions swept over me and jerked me completely awake. He must have felt my sudden tension, for he stirred gently, pressed my hand which he held in one of his, and murmured:  
“Finally awake? Gosh, I am dying for a smoke.”  
He turned on his stomach, kissed me on the mouth, kissed me once more, and a third time even longer and lustier before he reached for his cigarettes on the bedside table. I stared at him, incredulous, only slowly coming to myself.  
“Francis…”, was all I managed to say.  
Running a hand through his tousled hair, I took in his bird – like delicate shoulders, his sharp collarbones, the whiteness of his freckled skin. I could barely stand to look at him, he was that beautiful. He smiled at me, a little mockingly, I thought, propped himself on his elbows and, blowing out some smoke, asked:  
“So tell me all about your gorgeous Californian lover boys. I am sure you continued your studies of anatomy well after class? And on living objects?”  
I smiled. Francis was always hungry for some gossip, he loved little interesting stories.  
“No lover boys there, sorry to disappoint you. This was the most intense study of male anatomy I ever did.”  
Could it be that he blushed? I was amused.  
“What?” he cried with eyes wide open. “This was your first time? Why didn’t you tell me?”  
“I didn’t find the right time. As you might remember, I was too busy…”  
My voice trailed off and I let one hand wander down his smooth back to his even smoother butt.  
“I was too involved in those studies you mentioned.”  
He arched his eyebrows: “Yes, you were. But I am sorry. I could have been more – I don’t know, helpful?”  
“Forget about it. It was incredible.”  
“Incredible”, he mocked me back, like every time I used an outspoken non – old world expression.  
“Yeah, right, like - totally incredible. You snob.”  
We laughed, I scrambled up into a sitting position and drew him closer for a hungry kiss. Still laughing and trying to prevent his cigarette from touching the bedding, he funnily climbed onto my lap and closed his long, slender legs around my back. I supported him with my hands in his lower back, he leant back and took an exaggerated, indulgent drag on his cigarette, letting his hand rest in the air dramatically afterwards and throwing his head back in an ecstatic gesture. An elegant, graceful Faun right there on my lap in wintery Vermont, lovelier to look at than anything I had seen in marble in my art history books. We both broke into laughter, I held his body, light as a feather on mine, and felt the tiny shivers of laughter running through him.  
He kissed me, stubbed out his cigarette and smoothed my hair.  
“We should get dressed. Henry can be here any minute.”  
“What?” With a sudden stroke, all lightheartedness vanished.  
“He wanted to drop me a book from the library in Manchester before going to the twins.”  
“Why didn’t you tell me?”  
“I didn’t find the right time”, he quoted me with raised eyebrows. “What with getting kissed all the time, having your tongue in my mouth whenever I started to talk, suddenly being the object of intimate studies…”  
I drew him as close as possible, kissed his salty neck and buried my head on his shoulder.  
“No, I don’t want to get up. Besides, I was hoping for some more… you know… Come on, we still have time, don’t we?”  
I looked into his eyes. They grew dark and large with desire.  
“Just tell your butler to tell Henry you are in no position to answer his call right now. Or accept any books or anything else.”  
He giggled, leaning closer into me.  
“He is to tell him Mr. Abernathy needs to get laid just once more” – more giggles – “but wishes to express his gratitude about said books nevertheless.”  
I pushed him onto his back and rolled onto him.  
“And he promises he won’t read those precious books while being…”  
A knock at the door stopped us. Our eyes were full of laughter, but I couldn’t help whispering:  
“Why do I think Henry sees, and knows, just about everything?”  
Francis struggled free under me and got up. Shrugging into a magnificent silken bathrobe with a purple and dark blue paisley print, he whispered back:  
“Maybe because he knows everything.”  
The bathrobe billowed around him when he closed the door, and he left in a sudden flash of colour – flaming red hair, luscious purple and blue – like a strayed exotic bird in white – grey Vermont.  
“Stay here”, he hissed.

Months later, I would recognize this as the moment when I finally fell in love with him.

**Author's Note:**

> eyeslikerain.tumblr.com


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